It’s been a bit of a stressful period since the Wealth Hacker Conference last year. We decided that it was time to have our office space shortly after.
This means we must make the decision on renting vs. buying, where we would look and potentially qualifying for financing.
It didn’t take much time for me to nail down a couple of strategies and locations. (If it isn’t obvious enough, I love shopping 😉 and I’m pretty good at it! Haha!)
We secured a place before the holidays with conditions on financing.
There’s only one little problem…financing…
We setup a meeting with a rep from Business Development Bank of Canada, a crown corporation that has a mandate to help small businesses and entrepreneurs, to see if we could qualify for financing.
Our rep Arthur was amazing. He reviewed our businesses financials, advised us on the best structure and held our hands along the entire process.
For those of you who don’t know, 45 days conditional period are almost standard when it comes to commercial property purchase.
We had to finish our year-end for 2019 before we could submit our application, which meant that I dedicated my Christmas holidays to wrap up my numbers.
Between reviewing the financials, tax returns, getting approval for exceptions, and revising some application forms, we had only 7 business days left when we submitted our application to the underwriter.
The underwriter called the next day and asked me a few questions about my business, the future, and of course the numbers.
We managed to get the mortgage commitment on the final day of conditional period with a reasonable rate using our business income.
Yep! Using our business income!
It was a cool process because we are mostly tapped out to qualify for more mortgages, but BDC looks beyond what Erwin and I made personally and lend us money based on what we report in our businesses.
For those of you who work so hard to build their businesses, you too, can also take advantage of this program available to all Canadians. 😊
They offer small business loans for start up, 100% Loan to value mortgage, and more…
Yesterday, with my trembling hands, I “signed our lives” away on the dotted line.
It’s stressful and scary and exciting and everything all at the same time… wish me luck! 😊
Now, onto this week’s topic.
It’s that time of the year again, tax season. We’re ramping up and we want to re-share with you the top 10 tax deductions for real estate investors and 7 Bookkeeping Mistakes Real Estate Agent (and all TaxPayers) should avoid.
Until next time, happy Canadian Real Estate Investing.
Cherry Chan, CPA, CA
Your Real Estate Accountant
P.S. If you are interested in using your business income to purchase your next office, I’m happy to share Arthur’s contact with you. He can also work out some magic with you.
